Thursday, September 25, 2008

If you hate physics, chances are, your physics teachers sucked and didn't show you the connection between physical laws and how nature works. If you still want to give physics a second chance, I highly recommend this website. (If you already like physics/science in general, I think you will also find the site very entertaining.)

You can also buy the popular version of the book (as opposed to the textbook) and have a good overview of basic physics that every responsible citizens should know. If you are in Thailand, you can find it at Kinokuniya. I picked mine up at Kinokuniya at Siam Paragon. I think it's still 20% off.

I just found out that XK-PLUTO, the missile in the story described as:

Travelling at Mach 3 the XK-PLUTO will overfly enemy territory, dropping megaton-range bombs until, its payload exhausted, it seeks out and circles a final enemy. Once over the target it will eject its reactor core and rain molten plutonium on the heads of the enemy. XK-PLUTO is a total weapon: every aspect of its design, from the shockwave it creates as it hurtles along at treetop height to the structure of its atomic reactor, is designed to inflict damage...,

A few of my English-speaking friends read about the situation in Thailand and asked me about it, so I would like to summarize what's going on in Thailand here for the record.

The problem is the illegitimacy of the current government.

The current government is illegitimate in the following ways:

1. The Election Commission found evidences of vote buying by the leading party. This is being filed in the Constitution Court. What kind of democracy allows vote buying? If we allow this, we don't really have democracy, do we?

2. The current government signed a treaty without oversight of the parliament. This is in violation of the Constitution. The Constitution Court already found this unconstitutional. In a more civilized society, leaders would have resigned already.

3. To avoid being punished for the crimes in 1 and 2, the government is trying to amend the Constitution, in direct violation of the conflict-of-interest clause in the Constitution.

In addition to the above, the government is creating a lot of unnecessary and overpriced megaprojects totaling about US$ 30 billion. This is likely a way for them to get kickback from the bidders. Also, the government is appointing a lot of people with murky past to oversee the Central Bank and the SEC. These people won't be qualified to work in a bank, let alone being bank regulators.

So, basically, how can a civilized society be governed by criminals like this? Many people won't accept this, so a few hundred thousands of people convened to Bangkok to surround the parliament for 8 days (and counting) to pressure the government to step down.

The demonstration has been going on for over 100 days without any violence. Yesterday, a few hundred pro-government thugs came in with weapons and there was some fighting. The thugs were led by many members of the Parliament, from the Prime Minister's party. About 30 people were injured and one people died. The Prime Minister declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, trying to disband the demonstration and shutdown media outlets. Even more people joined in. Academics unanimously denounced the declaration. A DA refused to follow the government's order. The protest continues. Civil disobedience is growing.

Personally, I don't think the government can suppress the demonstration. It's blatantly obvious that the country is being run by thugs and corrupted people and people won't stand for it anymore.

By the way, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party financed by Thaksin Shinawatra, the former PM who is currently running from corruption charges in England. The current PM even admitted it himself that he is a nominee of Thaksin's before the election. Yesterday he was angry that a CNN reporter asked him about this.

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P.S. Samak Sundaravej, the current PM, pulled this trick once before. In 1976, he instigated violence against student protesters, leading to Thailand's 1976 Massacre. He is appealing a two-year sentence he got for slander. He is also being charged with corruption for the unusual deal he made for fire trucks during his term as Bangkok's governor.